


Burnt

by ayesire



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Underage - Freeform, bff nomin being dumb together, smoking is bad for your health yo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-30 21:14:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17836322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ayesire/pseuds/ayesire
Summary: Illegal and underage should be their middle names, really.





	Burnt

He takes the small white carton box with the red band around it from the desk. He closes the drawer carefully, making sure no sound heard when he does so. He grins to himself when he looks to the thing in his hand so proudly as if it was a gold medal or something. Without wasting any more time then he slipped out of the room, because his grandfather could come back any time soon. He practically laughs silently all the way to that house a block away from there, the thing secured safely inside his jacket’s pocket.

 

He is sixteen, four years away from the legal age to smoke. But why would he wait until he reaches that age? What is the fun of waiting for four years if he can do it now? And it is not like he is going to get addicted to it anyway. People in his class said that it’s hard for underaged kids to get the cigarette, and yet he has it easily. All thanks to his grandfather’s not so secret hiding place.

 

He rushes to the green house next to the florist shop right after he turns right. He opens the gate and the door himself because that is just how he does every time. This house sometimes feels like a home instead of his. He knows every room and every turn so well that he is confident he would be able to find his way blindfolded. He then follows his feet going upstairs to the room far at the west. He, again, opens the door by himself just fine.

 

Inside the room is another boy, seated comfortably on the bed with his elbow resting on the window frame which is opened wide. The boy grins when he sees him entered the room, almost ear to ear, and his eyes twinkling with excitements and mischievousness.

 

You got it? He nods. You really got it? More nods and pats on the bulge of his pocket.

 

“What did you say?”

 

“Nothing, I just take it from grandfather’s room.”

 

“You stole it?”

 

He cringes a bit at the ‘s’ word. He doesn’t have to be so blunt does he? He even used the word ‘took’ instead of the ‘s’ word.

 

“Shut up. Just get the lighter and let’s do it,” he seats himself joining the other next to the opened window.

 

The bed shifts as the other move to his drawer to get the hidden lighter. Meanwhile he rips the red band from the plastic wrap and excitedly opens the carton box. Again, he grins so proudly to himself when he takes a small thin stick out from the neat lining. He puts the base between his lips just like how he watched his grandfather does it every time. He feels so grown up right there at the moment. The adrenaline is rushing in his blood and spreading it to his body.

 

This is not even the first time he did something should-be illegal to his age. The two have done much more for what their parents can imagine. Their parents definitely know that the two are not the kind-and-innocent type of sixteen years old boy they wished. But they didn’t know what the boys have done was beyond their knowledge. They only knew those the headmaster called and complained to them, whom is an unreliable source of their wrongdoings. Name it and they have them on their list.

 

Breaking the girls’ hearts? So many times that they lost count already, but definitely not their faults. The girls were the one pestered them and got disappointed and called them names afterward. Entering the club with fake IDs? That is like their weekend activities. Drinking? Absolutely, surely, definitely. Driving over speed? Their favorite activity after the clubbing. Skipping school, not doing assignments, creating chaos at classes? Every day. But no one but the headmaster complained about it, they hold the top ranks at their school. Not to mention they both are the golden team member that has brought their schools so many medals from the basketball championships.

 

But this intoxicating and addicting nicotine sticks are the only things they haven’t try yet. So they discussed about it, and argued who would be the one to to get them the pack. He lost at their free throws last weekend. And the idea of getting it for free from his grandfather's supply just popped in his mind.

 

They are just curious, about how it feels when the nicotine enters their blood. And what it feels when the smokes enter and linger inside their lungs before they blow them out. And of course about what it feels to smoke illegally.

 

Illegal and underage should be their middle names, really.

 

The pack on his hand is taken and replaced by the lighter. He grins and takes away the cigarette from his lips. And he just realizes the filter tastes a little sweet

He then lights the tip, watching closely when the tobaccos are lit up and fluttering inside the blue flame, prickling like if they are dancing. And when the flame dies, they produce the thin long light smoke. The tip is still red and burning. And he watches the length slowly, really slowly, turn into nothingness when they burnt into dusts.

 

He hands the lighter back, and puts the now damp base back to the slit made by his lips, and he is ready.

 

He always watches his grandfather doing it from a very young age. So he virtually knows how to do it. Inhale the smoke, and then exhale it out. Just as simple as that. Everyone can do it. That should be easy.

 

So he takes a deep breath, and he sucks the base slowly but surely. He felt the eyes of the other watch him closely from the other side of the bed, cigarette sticking out from the corner of his lips and lighter ready in hand. But as soon as he gets distracted, he finally feels the smoke inside his lungs. And he coughs. Hard.

 

“Shoot!” is the first word he succeed producing between the burnt throats. He jabs the tip to the outside of the window frame and after making sure it’s died down, he throws it to the floor.

 

“Is it bad?”

 

“I need my medicine,” he says instead.

 

Why anyone would like it? It is the most horrible thing he ever experienced after the kissing practice time with that senior in junior high school he doesn’t even remember her name. He really has no idea. And he swears he is not going to do it again. It sucks.

 

He is then thrown a small box with printed information wrapped around the cute drawing design from the tiny fridge at the other corner of the room. Yes fuck him for having his own fridge in his room. He flips the corners up and opens the carton right away. Chocolate milk. His medicine.

 

He feels the need to explain that he got it from the new Chinese student who just moved to their school last semester. And he kept it here, because the other is for sure not going to steal his chocolate milk unless he wanted a toilet disaster two point o, unlike his grandfather who also loves chocolate milk. And reason number two, because he remembers how ugly the other's expression was when the new Chinese student gave the milk to him.

 

Yes. He is known as a young playboy, not like it’s his fault that everyone likes him when he doesn’t though. He is also well known in clubs though not as his real name. He drinks beers casually like tea, he skipped school, and to shorten things out, he is, should be, a really bad boy. And he drinks chocolate milk. Yes. In fact his favorite drink is chocolate milk.

 

The sweet rather thick liquid flows down his throats and healing the burn left earlier. He believes it heals him anyway. And he feels much better with the plastic semi transparent straw trapped between his lips while he sucks it hard rather than that damned cigarette. And not to mention that after all those hardships he went through to get them, all the sensation he felt is the burnt of his lungs and throats. There was no nicotine rush or the addicting wave, or the pleasure he heard people are talking about. The drying burnt is too overwhelming that nothing else exists in this horrible memory.

 

And he notices that the other has put his stick out and the lighter is on the table now. “I just realize how bad it is when you drink it that way,” he explains himself.

He nods. And he pouts when the chocolate milk is finished and his suctions only created the weird sounds  inside the carton. “It is that bad,” he agrees.

 

“Let’s just clean these wastes and get some ice cream for your throats. The smell will go away soon, I supposed.”

 

They go out after make sure the room doesn’t smell anymore. The other hides the lighter back to its original place and the used cigarettes are safely thrown away by the magic of the toilet flush. Aunty crosses path with them at the beginning of the stairs and she asks him if he is going to stay over until dinner because she is going to make the infamous curry after fixing the torn on her sons’ blankets.

 

And of course he cannot say no. That curry is an amazing, magical creation of life they are talking about.

 

“We’re going to grab some ice cream. Bye mom!”

 

And he is pulled by the wrist, and the next moment they are walking side by side following the way to the usual ice cream stall. The ice cream stall where the new Chinese student works part time at. The new Chinese student who is very interesting, just as interesting as how the cigarettes attracted him. But this is a different kind of attraction, because even if it burns his inside, it’s the nice kind of burnt and he really does get addicted to it.

 

“Oh gosh Jeno we are so dead this time!” his trail of thoughts is disturbed into a mess when the other stopped walking just all together and wailing out loud.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“I left the pack on the bed earlier and you didn’t hide it right?”

 

Shit.


End file.
